


Punishment

by orchidbreezefc



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Execution, Gen, Graphic Description, Transcription of Canon Events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 18:49:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orchidbreezefc/pseuds/orchidbreezefc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let's go through that first execution, a little slower this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Punishment

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The sounds are similar enough to warrant the same transliteration, but there are differences. Like little notes on anatomy: the thigh is fleshier than the shin; the outside of the knee is closer to bone than the inside of the elbow is; the stomach masks only organs, but the ribs crack on contact, make the screams of pain twisted and wet-sounding, stuttering on the blood Kuwata hacks up onto the floor ever-cluttering--

Thud. Thud.

Not so much as a whisper rises from the spectators. The only thing they have uttered this whole time was a choked gasp from one of the girls--perhaps Fujisaki--the first time Kuwata’s face was struck (his nose gave way with less of a thud than a crunch, dumped blood into his mouth, cutting off his scream, making him splutter, struggle to breathe even as his ribs were struck again). They would not talk about it afterwards, but they would all privately agree that it was this part where the horror and spectacle of it all was at its height. An utterance of dismay from the students to complement the cries of pain.

If the gasp was the most horrifying, the silence is the most difficult. The silence that comes and underscores the begging, when Kuwata is coherent enough to speak. His voice sounds like the bounce of a basketball without enough air inside. _Somebody please do something_ , he says. If the students close their eyes they can see his hope breaking under repeated blows, just like Leon’s body.

_Oh god, anyone. Please._

Every muscle in the room is tense like a coiled spring as everyone holds their breath for someone to do--anything. For someone to stop refusing to meet each other’s and Kuwata’s eyes, to shrug off the guilt settling over each student’s shoulders as they stand by, not daring to shuffle their feet. For someone to say a word or raise a hand against this.

Another ball strikes Kuwata’s face and his lip splits even more decisively in two. His face is a mess of blood. He must close the eye that isn’t already too swollen to see from, to keep the blood out of it. He is now pleading with an audience whose faces he cannot see. It doesn’t matter; he’s already seen enough in their faces, guiltily hidden and pretending not to hear. Those faces stole the rest of his hope so nothing stops the despair from pouring in like black, cold water and soaking him up to his waist, his beaten waist that he could not walk with even if there were a chance of escaping--

Thud.

If the most difficult part was the students’ silence under the begging, then the most awful part is when Leon, too, goes silent. The aborted attempts at words come fewer and farther between, a single intelligible _please_ here and there. The word is empty; Kuwata only says it to prove he can still speak with a ruined diaphragm, but it is soon too painful and fruitless to make points like that anymore. Aside from the background noise (impacts of balls against skin and snapping bones) the sounds taper off to those dragged from Kuwata’s throat, where a ball drives a shard of bone into a nerve like a hammer and nail. Where another organ bursts, or splits, spilling its contents without fanfare. Where he accidentally swallows a tooth that has been knocked loose, and its sharp points drag at his throat from inside.

The students do not say anything or make any move to try to do something before it kills him. Leon did not expect them to.

The ball-pitching machine whirs slower and slower before coming to a stop. The silence is total now.

If Kuwata was the guilty party, the rest do not feel like innocents.


End file.
